An Evening With The Neighbors

The man-of-the-house and I spent the yesterday evening with the neighbors. They aren’t much for conversation. Well, actually they aren’t human either. Ok, so they’re our cattle. It was a nice evening, and I wanted to get some pics of the growing calves, and so we went out into the pasture on the 4 wheeler to spend some quality time with the bovines.

The calves are growing like little weeds. In the first couple weeks after they were born, they ate and slept a lot, and stayed close to their mamas. Not so much anymore. They’ve discovered they have legs, and they are going to use them – for jumping, and running and playing.

However, all this jumping, running, and playing is cause for concern from the mama cows. They think that their babies should be quiet and stay close to them. The cows are trying to spend as much time as they can grazing on the delicious new green grass, but also have to keep an eye on those darn kids.

They have to follow them if they stray too far, break up any playing their kid is having with the neighbor kid if it gets too rough, and call them when they lose sight of them via a really loud MOOOOO…

Then, there’s the worry of their kid getting too close to the humans. Humans are no good, as every bovine knows, but the kids are just so curious that they can’t stay away. They just have to investigate.

Mama stands at a safe distance calling to her calf, who ignores her. Sometimes, other cows get in on the act too and call to calves that aren’t even their own. Humans just can’t be trusted.

This cow is not a good example though. She became curious too, and had to come in close to sniff my boot.

We stayed until sunset, and then went home. The neighbors were glad to see us leave. For the cows, it’s one less thing to worry about.